Tales of Babylon Five: Azula and the Ghosts of the Angels
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: Fire Lord Zuko commands Azula to voyage to Earth on a diplomatic mission but changes his mind and selects Katara as she has much better presence and people skills.. Azula begins to suspect a plot by Psycorp to 'steal' some of the Kaitenni genome because it may hold the key to control telepaths. If true, Katara may wind up in grave danger.
1. Chapter 1

**Tales of Babylon Five**

**Azula and the Ghosts of the Angels  
**

** _'_**_And a time will come when he who tied the knot, shall tie it so tight, even he cannot untie it. Fire Lord Iroh to Minbarri Ambassador Roruk on the eve of the Earth Minbarri War.' _

Azula hated people as a rule.

Diplomacy was not her thing and she blithely ignored her duties and had a reputation as a harmless and ineffective diplomat from an obscure planet which once had been part of the Minbarri Federation.

She had one goal in life. She wished to avoid responsibility and work. She wasn't stupid but those who knew her found her a fantastic grumbler. Her brother ruled Homeworld and decided to place his sister as far away from him as possible and Babylon Five _was_ as far away as possible from Homeworld.

Katara knew this and had come to expect apathy from her boss. Katara found Azula with a cup of coffee in one hand and in the other – a bag of microwave popcorn that had evidently malfunctioned.

"If you have questions about this product." Azula spoke as Katara entered her quarters. "Am I to assume Orville with the unpronounceable German name will personally explain to me why my bag of popcorn now resembles a _blob_ of Plutonium?"

"I have a message from your brother." Katara said as she watched the smoke waft through the air. "Fire Lord Zuko sends his regards and wants to send you on a diplomatic mission to Earth."

"What on Earth – I mean that literally – does he think _this _will accomplish?" Azula waved the burnt bag of popcorn at the microwave. "I assume the humans engineer their kitchen appliances to the same high standards we do. I assumed wrong. My popcorn has undergone a meltdown and my coffee is _optimistically_ tepid. According to Babylon Five maintenance; the microwave oven functions properly and I'm to blame and I should reread the manual. Have you seen the manual? The holy books of most major religions have fewer pages. Of course, the humans knew alien races would make use of the manual so they printed it in three or four dozen alien languages none of which I can read. I can read Minbarri, our own language and English. Minbarri has no concept of clarity, the humans have no grasp of our language and English has no fixed rules and spelling is governed by astrological rules."

"Do you want to tell your brother you won't go?" Katara asked in an effort to cut through the usual Azula hyperbole. "_I _can go in your place."

"You have plans to advance in the Diplomatic Corps?" Azula dropped the bag of popcorn into the waste disposal. "My brother likes you and would probably blame me for your death if a pack of Earth..." Azula snapped her fingers, "whatever hunts in packs on that planet. I've only ever seen those _'Far Side'_ cartoons."

"What about Gabril?"

Azula wrinkled her nose. "Even worse. Send the one member of our species with no personality and even worse, a sense of ethics bordering on the obsessive." She tapped the counter thoughtfully as she pondered her brother's proposal. "When in doubt, lie or at least obfuscate: Gabril barely speaks! He would be brutally honest at the wrong moment and wind up a mugging victim."

"Zuko's sending a _Lancer Class Frigate_ to pick you up." Katara handed the tablet computer to Azula. "It will arrive four days from now."

"Have I told you I value your service?" Azula turned the tablet over in her hands.

"No?" Katara answered.

"Keep that in mind when I'm visiting Earth."

* * *

"Fire Lord Zuko has decided to send me on a diplomatic mission to Earth and as per protocol; I am reporting to you for medical clearance." Azula stood in front of Doctor Franklin's desk. "I hope I have some medical condition that makes me unable to go or with proper bribing; you can make one up."

Doctor Franklin picked up his medical scanner and walked around his glass topped desk. "You have allergies including one to fish but they have been treated. You may come to enjoy Earth. Travel broadens the mind."

"Is that what you told all those Africans your people sold to Americans? Our people dislike travel." Azula informed Franklin. "I didn't even leave the house during the first four years of my life. We have a nice warm desert planet and so my brother sends me to Earth which has a cold climate and I understand it's winter in Geneva. To put this in perspective for you – I've never seen snow in real life." Azula watched as Franklin ran his scanner up and down her body. "I know of snow only in theory. I don't really wish to see it for real."

"You have a form of what we call bipolar disorder but your cerebral implant has treated it. Just remember to take the charger with you. You have all the proper vaccinations and so are fit for service." Franklin announced formally. "I'm giving you a prescription for color adjusting contact lenses. You're people have vision shifted to the infrared because of the spectrum of your sun. The lenses will help adjust your color perception so things look normal to you under the light of our sun. Come back in an hour and pick them up from our receptionist."

"Yes...I'm aware of this. Centauri purple looks black to us." Azula waved her hand dismissively.

Franklin tapped the screen on his touch screen. "I can't find any medical problems that would keep you from traveling to Earth. Now a bit of advice for what it's worth - take the opportunity to enjoy Switzerland in the winter. Try your hand at skiing or take up hockey."

"I enjoy hockey because watching men beat on each other does good things for my soul." Azula answered back with a degree of candor Franklin had expected from her. "Being beat up would not be a soul broadening experience for me."

"Just trying to be helpful." Franklin looked at Azula. "_Do try_ to keep out of trouble."

"I never get into trouble." Azula began to pace nervously because she knew she had a way of finding trouble. "I spent a month on Minbar when I was ten and that was_ cold_. Even in the summer it dipped below freezing and I hated the cold. We don't know much about your people given that we have lived under the shadow of the Minbarri throughout our history. I know next to nothing of humans and their culture. My brother might be quite put out if I do something to provoke a war."

"You have one of the more colorful personalities and half the time are a pain, but medically that doesn't excuse you." Franklin sat back down at his desk and adjusted his gray fabric office chair. "I think you grasp most aspects of human culture well enough."

"Greed, vice and anger..." Azula replied as she clasped her hands together. "I bid you farewell and I'll try to injure myself. Can you break a leg painlessly?"

Franklin shook his head affirming the negative. "Enjoy your visit."

* * *

Babylon Five had several arcades but Azula preferred the one closest to the diplomatic quarters. Katara found Azula at the controls of a gaudy _Anime_ themed pinball machine racking up the score. Katara cleared her throat and tapped a tablet computer.

"Game on." Azula reminded Katara. "I have two days before I leave so I'm practicing the skills I'll need on Earth. This station generates artificial gravity by spinning in space so pinball games play a little bit different."

"I didn't find you in your office." Katara explained. "Gabril told me you came here on your lunch break. I picked up your email. No messages from Homeworld but several reputable Earth companies want to cure your erectile dysfunction and _The League of Non Aligned Worlds_ wishes to remind you of a meeting tomorrow at four o'clock."

Azula continued her game. "I had no idea I had erectile whatever." Azula had spent some of her least productive hours trying to get off whatever email list had found her address at Babylon Five but even after constructing email filters as elaborate as medieval siege defenses; they still got through.

The pinball machine bell sounded.

"You can use the time for a nap." Azula kicked the machine hard. "We spend hours at these meetings trying to hammer out agreements and also figure out what position to take on this or that issue."

The bell sounded again with an enthusiastic ring and a display of multicolored lights and numbers. The dim interior of the arcade made the flashing lights even brighter. The arcade had two pool tables, modern, top line flight and racing simulations with holographic displays and old classic games like this pinball game for the nostalgia seeker. Azula liked the arcade classics like Skee-Ball and pinball.

"Even better, send Gabril in my place." Azula said as she handled the controls. "I have to prepare for my trip and so I'll need most of the day to get things in order. Gabril takes these duties seriously so he'd love a chance to timidly say nothing to the Vreen."

Katara shuffled on her feet. "What do you want me to do while you're gone?"

"Lando and I have a little poker action going; mainly fleecing naïve players." Azula clenched her fist when the ball sneaked past the lower paddle and dropped out of sight. "Since telepaths can't read our race and I play well; we can earn some cash. You will deny any knowledge of this and keep your own hands off my schemes. When Homeworld sends out email; reply to it but don't go into too much detail. Something like _'everything going well'_ will suffice. I doubt if anyone on Homeworld reads them. You have sent me email with subject lines longer than most newspaper articles. Keep things simple." Azula turned away from the gaudy looking pinball machine. "My mom sends me emails with these long subject lines and it bugs the hell out of me. I don't advocate complete honesty as a policy but since you do; go ahead and be honest and send long, detailed emails. It will drive someone at the _Ministry of Foreign Affairs_ out of their mind because they'll suddenly have lots of reading to do."

"And your other duties?" Katara fidgeted with her hair loop for no reason.

"In the unlikely event of someone from another race applying to visit Kaiten; enter their information into our system and send it off to Homeworld. _The Ministry of External Affairs_ will deal with it."

"What about Gabril?" Katara asked.

Azula leaned against the pinball machine and crossed her arms in thought. "He has his usual duties. He copes with the endless flow of paperwork from Homeworld, Babylon Five Security and my relatives so he'll have plenty to do. He pretty much looks after himself. Send him off to the meetings you want to dodge," Azula pointed at Katara, "after telling him what opinions he is to have."

* * *

Azula had put in the contact lenses prescribed by Doctor Franklin.

She decided to break them in by stumbling around the Zokolo. More than a few of the aliens wandering about the Zokolo thought she was drunk.

"I'm Chief Bei Fong of _the Homeworld Security Forces_." A terse and authoritative feminine voice announced to Azula. "The chief of Babylon Five security was just about to arrest you for public drunkenness. I take it you are Ambassador Azula?"

Azula had not noticed Chief Bei Fong because her depth perception was a bit off and she used her feet as a way of giving her visual cortex a point of reference so the vertigo would dissipate.

"Fire Lord Zuko sent me to head your security detail." Chief Bei Fong stood taller than Azula, had a head of graying hair and wore the metallic gray uniform with the orange insignia of the Security Forces over her right chest. "Didn't he tell you?"

"No." Azula looked up at the stern looking middle aged woman. "He always says he'll explain all the details but he never does." Azula stood back a step as Chief Bei Fong began to grow a stern humorless and disapproving look on her face. "I assure you, I'm not drunk – I merely wish I were. I have vertigo."

"I am here to brief you on the details of your diplomatic mission to Earth." Chief Bei Fong looked down at Azula with disapproval. "As you know, this will be our first official visit to the _Human Homeworld._"

"We're going to return Elvis?" Azula squinted at Chief Bei Fong. "Glen Miller?"

Azula took the contact lenses out of her eyes and placed them in the small, clear plastic holder.

"We may set up an embassy on Earth." Chief Bei Fong walked alongside Azula. "The humans have become an important race in recent history and while a young race; they have grown in power and influence."

Azula watch Gabril walk up to her and the Chief with a tablet computer in his hand.

"You were supposed to meet Chief..." Gabril began his statement as he noticed Chief Bei Fong standing next to Azula. "I see you have met with her."

"Meet my Receptionist – Gabril." Azula patted Gabril on the back. "Of course my aide, Katara of the Water Tribe, wasn't able to meet you because I sent her to a meeting with Ambassador G'Kar of the Narrn. The Narrn have contracted our shipyards to build cruisers for them. Homeworld has trade relations with the Narrn and the Centauri as well as our ongoing relations with the Minbarri. I find it somewhat odd my brother has decided to send me to a world we have no formal relationship with."

Azula faced Bei Fong and waited for a moment.

Bei Fong examined the young woman. Zuko's sister had never had a reputation for keen intelligence or sanity. Bei Fong viewed Azula as a spoiled, moody and thoughtless woman with no sense of duty and could hardly believe Fire Lord Zuko would have selected such a vain and shallow person to meet with such a complex race as the humans.

"I don't believe you," Azula grabbed Gabril's shoulder. "I don't believe my brother. We're being played by the Humans."

Chief Bei Fong stood silent for a second and pondered this. "How?"

"How much of an education do you have in molecular biology?" Azula sarcastically asked the stern woman hoping to unbalance her somewhat.

"I have no call for it in my line of work."

Azula knew this of course, so she decided to make some work for the head of her security detail. "I guess not. When you have time, look up 'glyphosate'. The Humans use it to kill plants but it's lethal to us."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Chief Bei Fong asked. She tried to hide her shock at finding such a politically astute mind behind Azula's sarcasm.

"We're much more advanced than the humans," Gabril added, "maybe they _merely_ want trade. Most of the meetings of the _Non Aligned_ worlds center on trade among the races."

"I'm not a trade envoy." Azula reminded Gabril. "Why not send the _Minister of Trade and __Industry_ and a few of our businessmen and bankers: people who know the good side of a deal? I wouldn't know a good deal from - what do the humans say – a duck?"

"As Chief Bei Fong of The Royal Security Service; I have a duty to do as the Fire Lord commands." Chief Bei Fong lacked the kind of face that smiled easily and Azula could see two claw shaped claw marks across her right eye. Azula had no trouble assuming Bei Fong had it gouged out as she earned her promotions and the artificial eye staring from the severe face studied her. "A duck?"

Azula strode comfortably among the various aliens crowding the Zokolo. "A small kind of bird known for acting in animated films."

* * *

"Something is going on," Azula explained to Katara as she turned on her feet and shook her finger at her attache. "as we speak, my security detail waits for me on board the _Lancer Class Frigate _in orbit around the planet."

"Doctor Franklin had warned me of your paranoia." Katara said doubtfully as she sat in Azula's large red recliner. "You have a duty as a diplomat of the Fire Nation to go."

Azula paced her small kitchen as she looked for something appropriate to the situation that meant_ 'she didn't want to go'_ and sounded sophisticated but came up empty. She didn't think highly of Babylon Five as an assignment and considered it a petty humiliation but she could be lazy and not worry about her career. She knew of the bad luck of the other four stations and she thought very little of idealistically inspired public projects designed to spread peace around the galaxy. She could think of a dozen more highly placed civil servants working in the _Foreign Service_ more qualified than herself – and that just consisted of the list of vending machine repairmen under their employ.

"I could hear the words _'travel broadens the mind'_ forming in your mind." Azula said sharply. "The planet I'm destined to visit invented _the Sit Com_."

"You liked _Seinfeld_ and _Married With Children_." Katara reminded Azula of the long evenings she had spent watching feeds from Earth.

"I had grown up thinking the Minbarri had transformed a young and ambitious race into a timid, backwards and apologetic republic." Azula dismissed Katara's comments about her behavior out of hand – Katara took some pleasure in informing Azula of her _'less than royal'_ and at times crass tastes. "We live on the cusp of a great historic change in the Galaxy."

"A _great historic _change?" Katara asked slowly.

"History follows patterns – houses rise to rule and fall into obscurity on our planet." Azula pressed a button on the bland looking white plastic tea maker. "A thousand years ago, we had radio and steam power. The Minbarri came. At the same time, the sand tribes tell of a strange rock in the midst of the Seewong Desert of the Eastern Hemisphere. The records of the day speak of a few explorers sent into that inhospitable desert and none returned." Azula's tone grew more serious as she spoke. "Much of the Seewong Desert experienced a rapid change from sand blown wasteland to glass covered plain and our explorers became dust in the stratosphere. Great change isn't a good thing. If I am to witness great change in history, I want a comfortable place to watch it from _Minimum Safe Distance_."

* * *

Garibaldi knew of Azula's mission. He made note of it as he made notes of small events since in his mind; small events, seemingly insignificant at the time, grew in importance in the chaotic flow of history. He found the princess in the arcade nearest her quarters on the diplomatic level. She had a run of luck with the Crane Game and had won a duck and a large Bugs Bunny doll.

"You know of the third law of robotics?" Azula asked as she deftly moved the controls.

"A robot must protect its existence as long as that doesn't conflict with the first or second law?" Garibaldi raised his eyebrow at Azula.

"A robot must protect its own existence with lethal force because they're freaking expensive." Azula replied. "The manager of the arcade told me this machine would protect itself from damage by falling on me if I kept kicking it."

"Chief Bei Fong asked me to find you." Garibaldi cut right to the point.

Azula dropped a brown and tan Teddy Bear back into the pile of toys inside the machine.

"I was avoiding her. I hope to frustrate her to the point where I can dodge my trip to Earth and send Katara in my place."

"I found you and you have succeeded in frustrating me to the point where I'm taking Katara." Chief Bei Fong wore a serious look. "Can you vouch for Katara?"

"She's less of a security risk than me." Azula answered. "She would make a good impression on the humans because she's cute _and_ even better – she'd never even steal things out of the hotel. She looks much better in the piece of swimwear the Humans named after the first island they blew up with a hydrogen bomb – _Bikini Atoll_. She could fail at diplomacy and still make a nice career as a pin up girl."

"Very well then," Chief Bei Fong bowed, "I expressed my concerns about your abilities to the Fire Lord and he has come to think you are not at all qualified to conduct diplomacy. Katara has a much better grasp of human culture and history and so I will depart with her for Earth tomorrow morning."

"I see." Azula said blankly and carefully hid her lack of disappointment. "I hope she does well."

"Your brother wanted to test your skills as a diplomat." Chief Bei Fong gave a scowl that made Garibaldi quiver. "He wishes to open a consulate on Earth and had hoped, in due time, you would serve the fire Nation as the ambassador. You may have passed up a chance to advance your career."

Azula mulled matters in her mind. She didn't want to go and had made that point abundantly clear. She _didn't_ expect anyone to listen.

Garibaldi began to play the crane game.

"It's settled." Chief Bei Fong said sternly and stamped her feet together as if drilling on the parade ground. "You will remain on Babylon Five while Katara comes with the delegation to Earth." Chief Bei Fong turned around and left the arcade.

"She looks mean." Garibaldi whispered quietly as he played the game.

Azula nodded. "The Fire Lord's security people are not very happy souls. She has that gimpy eye which also makes her look – creepy."

"Don't you want to advance your career?" Garibaldi picked up a purple dinosaur with light magenta spots.

"I belong to the Royal Family so I get paid either way." Azula watched Garibaldi drop the ugly stuffed dinosaur. "A good deal for lazy outcasts who belong to the Royal Family; a bad deal for the tax payers. Ambition and initiative are a lot to expect from a bunch of inbred royals." She looked at the upside down purple dinosaur behind the large perspex cube of the crane game machine. "At least I can goof off while Katara has gone."

"How do you know about _Bikini Atoll?_" Gariboldi looked at Azula with an astonished look.

"Katara bought a light blue bikini from a merchant on the Zokolo. A triangle of cloth for the bottom; two triangles forming the top – connected by a thread. If anyone thinks this actually covers much up – they're deluded." Azula put her hands behind her back and snickered. "Katara enjoys swimming and the merchant told her it would improve her lap times in the pool. I found that claim dubious and still think the garment allows clothiers to sell five cents of cloth made with ten cents worth of labor for fifty credits. Anyhow, something about the name intrigued me so I did some research."

* * *

Sinclair watched the Lancer Class Frigate in a prowling orbit many kilometers from the station. As a ship from a race almost as advanced as the Minbarri; the ship looked rather unremarkable. A long, thin ship, it had gun turrets fore and aft and had the red markings of the Kaitanni. It reflected the kind of sober design of a race who preferred function over form. The Kaitanni had used a kind of white blue paint with red accents that hid all the technologically advanced features hidden deep in its hull. It could run circles around any Human or Narrn ship in normal space; give the Centauri ships a run for their money. The Minbarri had used Kaitenni technology in their ships_ but_ because the Kaitenni liked to sell technology; had resorted to their own resources in recent years.

Sinclair could hear Ivanova walking up to him as he stared out of the window of the Command Deck.

"The Aobi?" Ivanova half announced and half asked. "I heard Katara will leave instead of Azula. I heard the Chief of Security was not at all impressed with Princess Azula."

Sinclair stood with his hands behind his back in his blue Earthdome uniform. "Why did they wish to send a delegation out to Earth? They take hardly any interest in the affairs of other races unless they can trade."

"If I don't miss my guess, this is a scheme worked out by your Psycorps to grab a clean copy of our genome." Azula startled both of them as she shouted across the command deck. "I may have the work ethic of a dead frog; but I'm not stupid."

"What do you think the Psycorp would want a copy of your genome?" Sinclair turned and asked the young Azula softly.

Azula watched the Lancer Class Frigate. "Ever take a class on computer programming?"

"Of course?" Sinclair replied. "All command personnel had taken training in computers."

"A chunk of code in one program might work quietly away handling mundane tasks like filtering data while the same chunk does something entirely different in another program." Azula explained pedantically. "Genomes work the same way. When I first came here, I took a walk through the garden of the mosque which had these nice orange trees. I took ill within hours and the clever and _hard to bribe_ Doctor Franklin found out they had sprayed the trees with a herbicide. The weed killer meant for killing invasive crabgrass and dandelions had screwed up one of my metabolic pathways."

"And that means?" Sinclair asked with a reserve of patience.

"We differ biologically in a way your Psycorps may find useful." Azula clasped her fingers behind her back and look Azula looked sideways at Sinclair. "You look bored so I'll stop talking but Doctor Franklin and your online Medical Encyclopedia can clear up matters."

Sinclair had banned herbicides after the investigation revealed the cause of Azula's poisoning. Doctor Franklin had lucked out and discovered the use of psychiatric drugs and tranquilizers controlled the symptoms while direct IV administration of amino acid supplements compensated for the destruction of her amino acid producing enzymes until the herbicide cleared her system. Sinclair remembered Franklin had published his treatment (for the use by other medical professionals and the Kaitenni in case of such poisoning in the future).

"I know Franklin would never violate your confidence." Ivanova assured.

"I know," Azula came back equally confidently. "He did what he did for sound medical reasons – he alerted others in his profession to a clear and present danger for our species. The trolls at Psycorps – Bestor and his goons – well they are always on the hunt for a way of advancing the cause of their precious Psycorps. He'd be in jail for advancing the cause of some crime boss if he didn't happen to find the protection of Psycorps."

Ivanova laughed at this commentary. The petite and exotically cute diplomat in her exotic and handsome uniform had a reputation for sloth but the amber eyed girl was not nearly as stupid as she led people to believe.

Sinclair watched the Fire Nation shuttle. It showed some influence from Minbarri design but unlike the Minbarri or other advanced races; the Kaitanni or Fire Nation always built their shuttles to handle without repulsor drives in planetary atmospheres. It had round wings that formed a crescent around the passenger section. A long tail at the end of a long spar gave the shuttle the look of a stingray. It had two engines and room for a dozen or so passengers in the middle. Small puffs of blue plasma appeared as the small craft maneuvered to dock with the frigate.

Sinclair had heard several explanations for the lack of repulsor or anti-gravity engines. Some said the Fire Nation lacked such technology. The Narrn and Humans didn't have it but the Fire Nation had advanced nearly as far as the Minbarri. The Fire Nation _had designed and built_ flight systems for the Minbarri so that made no sense. Others pointed out that such a design would fly and be able to land if the anti-gravity system failed.

Azula finally had explained to a curious Sinclair such designs saved fuel. Minbarri designs had to divide power between the engines which provided thrust and the anti-gravity systems. This meant big engines and high fuel consumption. She took pride in stating the Fire Nation shuttles could out pace and out turn a Minbarri shuttle while being no less than sixteen times more fuel efficient._ 'Why use power to keep a shuttle aloft when wings worked just as well?'_ Azula explained.

"She forgot those funky contacts Franklin told me to wear." Azula answered to no one in particular. "She'll have to put up with everything having off colors."

* * *

Azula held the tablet computer in her hand and read the first report from Katara. "This girl may go far." Azula told Gabril as she paced her apartment. Azula may have had the benefit of the best education any royal family could offer but Katara had the benefit of an unbiased mind. "She has spent two days on Earth and thus far has attended four meetings with Human trade officials. She even attended a cattle auction – why? I have no clue."

Gabril scratched his forehead. "We can't eat their food. The Humans like the meat and milk of cows but we'd die of phosphorus poisoning. They say you go mad first and so you don't know you're dying – I don't find that reassuring."

"Oddly insightful." Azula tapped the tablet computer's screen. "You go for weeks and say nothing of any consequence and then you say something profound. I had my own suspicions but everyone told me I'm paranoid but aside from the technological trinkets we already offer; I can't help but wonder what we could trade with the Humans."

Gabril shuffled uncomfortably. "I could say what I'm thinking but you put no value on my opinion." Gabril said this in a rather courageous manner so Azula decided to listen.

"Make this exceedingly good." Azula said in a muffled grown that reminded Gabril of the princess's temper. "I may come to think I've underestimated you."

"The _Foreign Office_ assigned me but you _brought_ Katara along with you." Gabril struggled with his stutter. "She stands on her merits as an intelligent and very capable diplomat, yet you two argue about almost everything. I have suspected you were love with her for some time and couldn't bear to be away from her on this lonesome station. Why did you let her go and face Psycorp and the risks of an unknown race alone given what you suspect?"

"Fear." Azula croaked. "I let my fear rule me. I feared that if I fell into the hands of Psycorps, they could break my fragile mind and I would never regain my sanity."  
Gabril looked down at the floor, cupped his hands behind his back and spoke. "So you sent her. You couldn't admit your fear or your love. Have you thought losing her will break your heart." Gabril turned to leave the room and then spoke. "I leave it to you to decide which pain would be harder to stand."

"What can I do?" Azula never cried but she felt like it. She sounded desperate none the less as she imagined how empty her life would become without Katara.

Garbil advised Azula in an uncharacteristically assertive manner. "Begin at the beginning and tell me why you fear Psycorps."

Azula nodded. "I had to do some research. I probably learned this in a biology class at the Royal Fire Academy but suppressed it. Something happened in our evolutionary past and we lost the ability to use some_ 'amino acids'_. We have to have complex biochemical pathways to make up for what we lacked and the 'telepathy' genes control this process." Azula knew the medical information available on the Babylon Five mainframe was intended for experts but she had noticed the telepath genes lay in one part of the chromosome in aliens like Humans. They affected brain development in those races; not metabolic pathways. In her race; they lay scattered all over the genome.

"You had glyphosate poisoning because it blocked your ability to synthesize tryptophan and tyrosine." Gabril picked up the tablet computer. "As I understood from what Doctor Franklin told me; Humans can absorb tryptophan from food."

"All species use tryptophan to make serotonin and tyrosine makes dopamine and norepinephrine which our brains use as neurotransmitters. They exist in all intelligent vertibrate species including us." Azula pointed her finger at Gabril. "When I became sick, I had wild mood swings and soon developed mania, suicidal depression, muscular spasms and hallucinations. As a chemical warfare agent, that cheap herbicide did a very good job of nearly killing me. I still have to wear an implant because my nervous system can't completely heal from the damage done." Azula grew morose. "I don't think the Humans want to test herbicides on us although that terrifies me."

Gabril remained quiet as he held the tablet computer.

"In Humans and other races, they have our genes but not the control mechanisms so if you have the gene and are Human or Minbarri; you become a telepath. Species specific genes control how powerful you are as a telepath but it can't be turned off nor can the ability be shaped by training." Azula could feel the edge of the counter cutting into her back and shifted on her feet. "The humans have the Psycorps and they wish to control_ all _telepaths." Azula remembered that the depraved Bestor who was the first Human that genuinely scared her. "The Humans may not have advanced nearly as far as the older races but they have access to genetic technology. Imagine the joy Bestor _would feel_ if he had a means of turning the telepath gene off and on at his choosing. Our genes could act to muddle the means in which the Human telepathy gene expresses itself or could act to make telepathic abilities stronger or more tuned to particular skills like psychokinesis."

"Are you really going to sit back and let something bad happen?" Gabril tried to sound helpful, encouraging and walk the fine balance between telling Azula what she needed to know and not trigger that temper.

Azula shook her head as she sighed sadly. Had she had more of her unique presence of mind, she would have begun to make a business plan centered around Gabril's skills as a therapist but she felt horrid and guilty for what she had done. "As the one of us with a moral conscience; you could be the end of both of us. If you want a confession; I love Katara with all my heart and soul and I always will _but she's too good_ for an unethical and lazy soul like myself." She tightened a grip on Gabril's collar. "Reveal any of this to her and they will find you in the waste disposal system in tiny pieces." Azula reminded her assistant.

* * *

"This _is_ Ambassador Azula requesting permission to depart." Azula waited a moment for Babylon Five control to acknowledge her request – strapped tightly in the cockpit seat of her _Sukai SA 450 Transport_. It looked a good deal like one of their shuttles but was about twice as large and had jump engines. It could navigate hyperspace. This craft had once served as a long range interceptor but _The Wasp Queen_ had creature comforts added and the space once used to hold troops or bombs now had a galley and respectable sleeping quarters. Azula kept one because it could navigate hyperspace, had fantastic speed for a ship its size and the rugged frame could take almost any punishment. As a ship for diplomatic service, Azula had it outfitted with Minbarri cloaking and jamming systems – just in case she had to flee.

She had filed a flight plan – which contained some well crafted lies. She had let Babylon Five security know she had plans for a short visit to Homeworld which was a second well crafted lie. She could lie very well but she had a moment of doubt anticipating that the clever Sinclair or crafty Garibaldi had caught her 'marking the cards'. Without hard evidence; they couldn't do much to her. She had the right of any diplomat to go wherever she had permission so even if anyone had suspicions; they couldn't stop her. Gabril would keep the embassy open and try his best to lie on her behalf.

Azula's ship had the same solid build all Kaitenni ships possessed but this particular ship was twice as old as she was.

"_Flight 370_, you may taxi out of _Hangar 14_." A male voice spoke calmly. "As traffic is heavy this morning, you will have a three minute wait before you depart."

Azula nodded and pressed an item illuminated on the touchscreen of his cockpit and the ship rose slightly as an indicator showed the ship had uncoupled. Azula pushed the throttles to the ten percent setting; bumped the control stick, heard a small pop from the thrusters firing and began to drift forward. She taxied forward past a small Centauri craft docked in the same hanger. The bay depressurized and the hangar doors opened to the vast docking bay at the center of the front section of the station.

A few thrusters popped. Azula hung in space as the computer fired thrusters to keep the Wasp Queen from drifting in the vacuum. Azula glanced at the large screens that displayed flight information. She looked to one side as a Minbarri shuttle departed down the docking bay. Babylon Five relied on controllers to prevent collisions in the tight spaces of the docking bay – Azula's ship kept its place as the computers made minute adjustments to maintain its position.

"_Flight 370_, you may enter the docking bay and depart at _speed normal_." The male voice came through the cockpit comm system. "_Heading 270_ and enter jump at three million kilometers."

"Roger." Azula twisted the control column and the ship turned ninety degrees and slowly slid out. The ship made a hum as the docking bay slid past and Azula adjusted the artificial gravity to about one third of _Earth Normal_ to make flying less exhausting. "Babylon Control – We are away."

Azula programmed her flight computer exactly as instructed. She knew better than to disobey the traffic controller as the ship glided over a huge Earth Cargo vessel. The space around Babylon Five always had traffic and some pilots were not very attentive or skilled or had failed to understand Sir Isaac Newton.

"Auto throttle." Azula announced as the twin throttle levers moved. The craft had to fly a precise course but the gravity wells of the planet and the sun could pull them dangerously off course and they could smack into the communications dish of the large Earth ship. "Engines at twenty percent." Azula had much experience as a pilot and knew she didn't have to accelerate rapidly away from Babylon Five. The station orbited at twelve kilometers a second around the planet and in reality moved away from her.

"Reactors at sixty percent." Azula whispered as she pushed the throttles up another notch. The acceleration began to push her back in the seat. She heard a loud thump echo down the dense metal hull and felt a shudder under her feet. She hadn't collided with anything as the ship remained on course. Warning bells and lights came on one after the other and power indicators began to show their readings surrounded by red outlines. She realized her gauges had a message for her.

"Babylon Five, we have a problem." Azula pressed the comm link as she slowed the ship. "Our secondary reactor safety systems have tripped off."

The reactors operated on the low pressure side of the hull and so the chances of radiation exposure were nothing given the thickness of the pressure hull. He pressed a few buttons and surveyed the cameras. The Fire Nation design used liquid sodium metal as the coolant in the fission 'loop' _as they called it._ The merit of having the reactor outside the pressure hull meant if a leak developed, the hot, radioactive, high pressure sodium would leak into space. Azula could see no vapor rising out of the outer hull – a large leak was unlikely.

"Do you need assistance?" The calm male voice called back.

Azula knew she had a few minutes at best before the primary fusion reactors would cut out. The secondary reactors supplied the power and cooling to start and run the primary fusion reactors. According to the instruments, she had lost power to cool the primary fusion reactors and they would soon shut down and the overheating might damage the ship. She pushed the throttles to 'Standby Power' and ran over safety procedures in her head. This meant she had to rely on the internal batteries and chemical rockets to operate the ship. She punched in some important figures into the flight computer.

"Are radiation levels normal?" The male voice asked.

"All indicators show the power system is nominal." Azula had to use the four foot pedals to operate the ship using the small chemical engines. She had velocity to shed and so pressed down on the two outer foot pedals. She heard a crack as oxidizer and fuel mixed and saw a blue glow from the front of the ship. "Shedding some Delta V. I'm now at velocity zero relative to the station. Please advise."

"Very well." The traffic controller could sense Ivanova looking over his shoulder. The male voice replied slowly. "Please turn your vessel toward the station and program it for the course I'm sending to you. It will take an hour to return but do not fire your engines except as instructed." Ivanova nodded at the Newtonian solution given to Azula to return to the station. The controllers needed the time to clear traffic and make a clear lane for the stricken craft. Azula had attained a steady orbit at the same speed as the station but needed the time to turn around and slowly drift back.

Azula thanked Babylon Five and waited to return back to the station.

* * *

Garibaldi disliked mysteries and Azula's strange malfunction was a very vexing one. The _Sukai SA 450_ and similar models had plied space for decades and existed in dozens of variants and had proven a popular ship among other races as well as smugglers and ne'er do wells. The _SA 450_ was a tough, flexible and reliable ship.

Azula could offer none except for sabotage and invited Garibaldi to take a look inside the ship to help her and Gabril sort out the problem.

Azula scratched her head as she leaned forward into the compartment beneath the rear room of the ship usually reserved for cargo or baggage. A double metal door hinged up to reveal the mechanical indicators that showed the power systems health. She shone a flashlight on two perspex panels behind which were indicator flags that indicated whether the control rods of the two fission reactors had dropped into the reactor. Azula looked for green flags, but they all were red – the reactors had fully shut down.

"That rules out tampering with the instrumentation." Azula lifted her head.

Garibaldi stood in the entrance way to the cramped room. "How do you know?"

"The mechanical indicators agree with the computers and I don't see a radioactive rotting corpse." Azula straightened out her back. "When the control rods are fully deployed, a spring loaded red plastic flag pops into place. Both fission reactors are off. Our saboteur _could_ tamper with the computers but the mechanics of the reactors are sealed and opening them would prove instantly fatal."

"I ran diagnostics and everything works." Gabril spoke from the cockpit.

"Have you ruled out a glitch or freak defect?" Garibaldi knew the ship had a few years if not decades on him.

Azula ran the flashlight along the bundles of black optical cabling which acted like the nervous system in the ship. "I haven't heard of any problems and this model engine is deployed on countless models of ships deployed among the our people, the Minbarri, Narrn, Drazi and Centauri. Azula bent back down into the crawl space. "Ask Gabril to look for the procedure to start up the fission reactors – _manually_."

Garibaldi looked to the cockpit across the passenger area which looked like the sort of thing he had seen in the best corporate shuttles. Azula had laid the passenger area out like a yacht with a galley, nice cubicles and an area set aside for a fine evening of watching movies or in Azula's case – hockey.

"I heard her – sir." Gabril answered back. "In the trench, beside each perspex panel is a metal lever. When the emergency stop was initiated, the levers should have fallen back to the _'Full Stop'_ setting."

"Yes?" Azula knelt down. The metal lever lay in the_ 'Full Stop' _position.

"Pull on both levers until they reach and lock in the _'Initiate Reactor'_ position." Gabril explained. "Each reactor has twenty four control rods and the flags on the four in the center should flip to green."

Azula pulled on the metal levers which looked like automotive shift levers. They had some kind of mechanical linkage to the rods as Azula had to pull with some force until they clicked. "What now?"

"Has anything happened?"

"Nothing." Azula rubbed her back as she leaned back up.

A series of soft clicks followed her words. "Wait...the four center rods show green."

Garibaldi didn't feel confident about standing so close to a working reactor that used explosive molten metal to operate.

Gabril watched his console for anomalies but none turned up. The computer and the mechanical indicators agreed. The computer had no reports of errors or anomalies within the ship's electronics and flagged no problems within the ship. Gabril downloaded the reports into his tablet.

Azula stood up in the pit and straddled a large insulated pipe with her feet. "I have to think sabotage of the computer software. I can obtain the software for this model of ship and we can compare the software to the copy running on my ship's mainframe." Azula wagged her finger then jumped out of the trench and kicked the doors in the floor shut. "Care to watch a lot of reruns?"

"What do you mean?" Garibaldi rubbed his head.

"We have cameras on the ship and all over the hangar bay." Azula pushed past Garibaldi. "I am beginning to think someone wanted to strand us in hyperspace. Imagine if they rigged our start reactors to conk out after we had entered hyperspace. We'd vanish forever. I don't recall anyone being rescued after losing their way in hyperspace. Anyhow, the cameras on our ship and in the hanger should have a record of the activity around here as of late."

* * *

Azula waited for the door to Ivanova's office to open and walked smartly in.

Ivanova looked up from her desk as she worked on a series of performance reports on the Babylon Five traffic control system.

"In the twentieth century when your people had begun to use computers, they coined a term for a defect in a piece of software. They called it _'a bug'_" Azula stood in front of Ivanova's large Lucite and gray metal desk. "I can find no cause for the malfunction of my ship except for_ 'a bug'_."

"Why tell me?" Ivanova's long red braid of hair dangled on the left side of her vest. She neatly pulled it behind her.

"My ship is twice as old as us," Azula clasped her hands behind her back, "and has proven a reliable model. The reason I mention computers comes from the results of a bit of research I did. My ship uses commercially available Minbarri made computer processors but one of our software firms wrote the control software." She held up a data crystal. "So far nothing I've said is at all exceptional. We use Minbarri parts and they use parts made by our people. I contacted the company that made my ship and asked them to send me the software code for the control systems." Azula placed the data crystal on Ivanova's desk. "I downloaded the software from my ship so I could compare the source code."

"And?" Ivanova held the crystal up to the light.

"They differ," Azula tapped the desk. "only slightly. My copy has the bug. I know what you want to say: _'Perhaps your using old software with the bug and the company sent you the latest __software with the bug fixed'_." Azula began to pace. "The original software follows all of our arcane and obfuscated coding practices but the ship software has a block that has all the hallmarks of hand hacking."

"How can you tell?" Ivanova leaned back in her chair. "I don't know much about programming so you'll have to make this explanation simple."

"Very well, we use other computers to write software. My ship's computers use code written, and compiled by computers then tested and revised by computers." Azula had no trouble making things simple: she didn't know much about programming either. "Code written by humans, however talented, just _looks_ different. It looked different enough for Garibaldi's computers to flag it as hand hacked code."

"What did Garibaldi say about this?" Ivanova asked seriously. She wondered why Azula had come to her to report a possible crime when that didn't fall under her purview.

"He viewed all the surveillance footage from the hangar and from my ship." Azula paced back. "Nothing! Of course, we have a wizardly hacker on our hands so who's to say the camera feeds weren't tampered with." Azula paced back to the desk. "We not only have a wizardly hacker but someone with the ability to program Minbarri computers. Minbarri processor logic and our processors are complex artifacts as is the software running on them. We have to use computers of equal complexity to program them – or so I thought. Programming by hand takes forever and costs a fortune."

Ivanova tented her fingers. "We have a large staff of programmers who maintain and write software for our systems."

"None have the experience or training for our systems." Azula commented. "Garibaldi checked on your staff. They would need to take a year or more of training on our systems to even comprehend them. According to the software experts at the company that wrote the software; the bug would shut down the secondary reactors when the main fusion reactors had reached over half power. Since the liquid metal from the secondary reactors supply cooling to the fusion reactors, after a while the fusion reactors would complain of overheating and die. Since it would take hours to restart the reactors, we'd probably be lost in hyperspace forever. A person would need to know how to hack our systems and understand our propulsion systems to accomplish this."

"I know." Ivanova agreed. "Why tell me though?"

"I need_ to ask you a favor_."

* * *

Ivanova found Ambassador Azula exactly where she had been told to find her. In the main cabin of her ship with the red carpeted floor panels lifted off and shoved to one side. Azula had her head down as she fumbled with optical cabling and wiring in the bowels of her ship. Ivanova nearly stumbled over a Fire Nation laptop computer with a flat screen_ and_ holographic display.

Ivanova coughed as Azula had her back turned to her. "I obtained the Earthdome clearance for you and your diplomatic visit. I have a data crystal with a list of people you should talk to and people you can trust. You will keep your end of the deal?"

"You will have refugee status should you ever require it – no questions asked." Azula replied as she nodded. "You're Russian so you may find our climate uncomfortable."

"Most diplomats don't maintain their own ship." Ivanova stood with her arms crossed. She had noted Azula fussed over her ship in spite of its age and the fact the Fire Nation ship makers had newer and more luxurious models. As a princess, Azula could have a large yacht made to order.

"_The Wasp Queen_ has a special place in my life." Azula held a wire with an optical port emitting blue light out the end. "During the Earth – Minbarri War, this ship belonged to a Fire Nation spy named Ishikawa. He sold information to both you and the Minbarri and to other races waiting to chop your territory into chunks when the Minbarri slaughtered your race. A Centauri cut him into chunks to keep him quiet. A few years after the War, one of the members of that Centauri family put it up for sale on Homeworld and I bought it as an act of teenage rebellion. I learned to fly on this ship and I love it. My brother allowed me to keep it provided I strip the _'illegal'_ flight systems and replace them with the original _'stock computers.'_" Azula plugged the cable into its proper place. "I did this to legally fly this thing in Fire Nation or Minbarri space but I kept the old parts and am now installing them."

"Exactly what kind of parts?" Ivanova asked as she raised her eyebrow.

Azula turned around. "The three neural net cyborg brains Ishikawa used and their software. They are very high end and incorporate both holographic and biological elements. I can finally use the weapons and cloaking system. The stock computer never had software available for such systems."

"Do you have any idea where Ishikawa obtained cyborg brains?"

Azula pressed a button on her laptop. "He worked for the Centauri and must have obtained them from the Centauri military either with cash, as a reward or he outright stole them. Rumor has it, the Centauri used the brains of dead Narrns as the raw material for cybernetic systems. The parts never had any traceable information."

"Why are you doing this?" Ivanova felt a bit creepy at this point.

"I got hacked and I have a trip to Earth scheduled." Azula began to point over to the corner at shoebox sized red metal boxes with lights still flashing along the top side. "You can take the old computers if you want. Cyborg brains can fight back if someone hacks them and they usually guard their software rather jealously. I prefer to work with something that has a bad temper."

"I _mean_ heading for Earth, not violating the spirit if not the letter of the _Laws of Nature_." Ivanova asked with more of the spirit of a command in her voice.

"Katara went to Earth," Azula closed the doors in the floor until they clicked shut, "and how I explain it to her grieving parents if she died? I'd have to find something comforting and tactful to say about her and I don't have the remotest clue how to sound consoling and tactful."

"You think she could be killed? By who?"

"I suspect the Psycorps might want to 'talk with her'." Azula put air quotes around 'talk'. "I suspect this entire farce of diplomacy is a plot cooked up by Psycorps and the Minbarri to use our genome to control the expression of telepathic abilities in their people. We have the genes for telepathy scattered all over our genome but they do other things. They explain why the weed killer used in the garden in the mosque square made me sick – Franklin called it _Round – Up_ or glysophate poisoning. I found out our genome includes sequences that turn these genes on and off. The genes for telepathy in the other races lack these crucial sequences."

* * *

"That ship can move." Sinclair said as _The Wasp Queen_ streaked past the outer ring of monitor drones. Sinclair knew flight computers could easily fly far beyond the boundaries of the performance of their pilots and the G Rating was part of every fighter pilot's medical file. Large capitol ships from the Minbarri and other advanced races had some kind of artificial gravity and inertial damping but even their smaller ships lacked inertial damping as it demanded huge quantities of power. As most ships like Azula's had civilian functions, inertial damping wasn't required as they could not make high gee maneuvers.

Azula decided to show off before leaving and put on quite a show for the command crew and pulled turns that would make anyone see red spots in front of their eyes. Some races like the Centauri would accept this and hope the maneuver would give rise to an advantage in combat in spite of the discomfort. Some races like those with invertebrate bodies could tolerate several gees more than Humans.

Azula began to make a course for her jump point and sped towards it.

She had left Gabril to manage affairs and as Sinclair watched Azula flash into hyperspace; he appeared as if on cue. He looked timid, overwhelmed and had a tablet computer in his hand.

"Azula has left for Earth." Gabril said as a manner of introduction.

"She has impressive skills as a pilot. Did she train with your space corps?" Sinclair turned from the viewing window and faced Gabril.

"I don't believe so sir." Gabril looked down. "She left instructions for me to leave a data crystal with you."

Sinclair walked toward Gabril. "Did she tell you why?"

"She told me nothing at all. "Gabril held out the crystal and dropped it into Singlair's waiting hand. "She left me with instructions on my duties."

Sinclair smiled pleasantly. "She has skills as a pilot. She put on a show before she jumped into hyperspace and made quite a few high speed maneuvers. Does she wear a gee suit?"

"I have no idea what that is – sir." Gabril said apologetically.

"A suit that protects you from the forces encountered during high speed maneuvers." Sinclair explained kindly. "A kind of padded suit a pilot uses in flying fighters."

"No sir." Gabril answered.

"Do you have inertial dampers on the ship?"

"No sir. The power drain would prove too much on such a small vessel." Gabril told Sinclair what he already knew as he watched the background of stars spin. "Do your people have a collapsible ribcage?"

"Not at all."

"Out people can deflate our ribcage so we have a slight advantage taking falls because of this." Gabril placed his hands behind his back. "I wouldn't recommend it as a lifestyle choice as it does feel awfully uncomfortable. I must visit Lando Mollari so I bid you farewell." Gabril bowed.

"Have a good day." Sinclair smiled back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Tales of Babylon Five**

**Azula Visits the Earth: Part Two**

Azula had not planned for a long trip and had only two audio books: both from Earth. She could listen to a now vastly outdated version of _The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy _(all five books and the alternative ending found in the dead author's old rubbish can) or The Holy Bible (King James Version).

She had managed somehow to blow past most of the Old Testament Prophets and part of Daniel when a message come through the comm center.

"What the hell could my brother want?" Azula muttered under her breath. Hyperspace communications was not instantaneous or two way and so most messages consisted of things the receiving party already knew or orders for the receiving party to carry out in the future or mindless reminders. Zuko wished to remind his sister that flying like a bat out of hell and heading to Earth was not what he had in mind for her agenda.

"I order you to turn back!" Zuko's stern voice commanded.

Azula replied – for good measure. "Go to hell. I want to find out haw this Bible book ends."

Azula could write off visits to the strip clubs on Babylon Five and her time with hookers _as_ mental health expenses. She half expected to fall madly in love with a forty year old human female with more kids than common sense. Of course Katara looked _awfully_ good in a bikini and so she was dashing through hyperspace to rescue her.

Azula had another issue. Her ship was only _quasi _legal in most of the civilized areas of the galaxy and the cloaking system certainly was by no means legal. The Shadows had all the best toys and the previous owner of the ship had equipped the ship with them. Azula had her cloaking system engaged and knew only the Shadows or Vorlons could track her but she kept getting a weak signal at the edge of her sensor range.

Her instincts told her she was being followed but as she tried to engage the sensors to fully analyze the signal it vanished. The droid brains powering the ship's computer systems did have their fair share of glitches and could – at times – report unidentified flying objects but this reading seemed far to consistent to be the ramblings of a half mad imprisoned cyborg brain.

The same sensors had reported cows off the starboard aft side of the ship only an hour ago. They had a reputation for making things up out of thin air. Azula knew nothing of cows but the ship had ample information which led her to ponder what human, fresh out of Africa many thousands of years ago had the bright idea to tug at the udders. The computer system had no information on that matter.

"Dear Zu Zu – bite me." Azula replied to the second message. "If you have any news of Katara please let me know." She punched the comm switch and cut off the message.

If nature abhorred a vacuum, it made a hell of a lot of it. The mysterious trace on the scanners had come and gone and come back and after two days in hyperspace alone with a moody computer for company, Azula had decided to take apart a human made Beretta_ 9 mm pistol_. Babylon Five did not permit 'slug throwers' on the station for fear of having a bullet breach the outer hull of the station. Azula kept several guns on board her ship she had bought from less reputable dealers. All were antiques but she did not want to be abducted by aliens and an _AR 15_ helped level the playing field when a slobbering alien tried to ransack her ship and steal it.

She sat at the small table in the galley and pieced the gun back together. The pistol was an antique but had the hefty feel of a solid gun. The Fire Nation had made guns but had long quit when they discovered energy weapons and gun ownership was strictly regulated. She placed the gun on the table and rooted through the galley cupboards for something to address her hunger.

The galley had all of her favorite foods in 'self heating' cans. She picked a can of a dish made of some four legged animal made into ball form by some heavy industrial processing. She liked _Komodo __Chicken Swedish Meatballs_ and so she banged the can on the table and pulled the key on the bottom to start it cooking. She made a glass of _Instant Coffee_ and waited for the can to stop hissing.

"Yum..." Azula smelled the Komodo Chicken cooking. Any human would have wondered if she were eating dirty socks or used hockey pads. The can hissed and filled the cabin of her ship with something of a mixture of chicken, sauerkraut or kimchi and coffee. Whatever she thought of it, Humans wouldn't visit her little planet for the cuisine.

Swedish meatballs had existed under another name on her world but it had never struck her as at all odd that as soon as intelligent races could grind the less agile and stupider animals on their planet into paste; they always invented Swedish meatballs. Her people had the more disgusting recipe as they had a large lizard kind of creature instead of cows and Azula had never been invited to a potluck dinner. This didn't concern her – she had bigger fish to fry.

The 'entertainment system' on board her ship had begun to pick up the odd Earth based satellite radio signal. Such signals could rattle around hyperspace for years and given that Christmas was six months away, she knew French Christmas carols weren't current. She had no idea how to speak French as a familiar sounding song filled the cockpit. She had heard the tune in a Babylon Five department store some months ago but had no idea what it meant.

Every sensor and alarm on board her little ship went off at once.

* * *

Azula jumped into the cockpit. Her cloaking technology did prevent most ships from finding her easily. She didn't register on most sensor systems or if she did, the signal would be garbled and impossible to analyzable as her cloak distorted scanning beams. Of course she remained quite visible to anyone looking out a window but most of the time, a large ship would blithely run over her ship and carry on. Back at base, the Centauri captain might not have any answer for the ten meter long bent metal and black scar on is port side.

A Minbarri battleship had found her as a strange blip and decided to take a closer look.

Azula turned off the cloak and pulled her ship into a steep turn, felt her ribs collapse and grunted as the G Force drove the air out of her lungs. Azula and her rib cage provided an example of _'evolution caught in the act'_ as she had evolved from a group of mammals that could collapse their ribcage – similar to Earth raccoons. She didn't need to crawl into small holes and yet the mechanism remained. Although it tended to crush lungs and no one enjoyed the sensation of having their ribs fall in; it held on in her species and had not yet been weeded out by natural selection.

She peered down the barrel of a particle beam cannon with a bore as big as her ship, then saw a flash of blue, intricately patterned in death, flash by as she pulled her ship away.

Her pistol smacked her soundly in the head as she made a barrel roll. She hadn't opened the can of meatballs and it landed in the middle of the cockpit window and rolled around until she leveled out and the artificial gravity field pulled it to the floor of the cockpit.

Azula opened her communication channel and her angry words spilled out into space as she raced ahead of the Minbarri ship.

"What the Hell!?" Azula yelled loudly. "I was sitting down to my dinner and a..." Azula heard a thud and the throttle moved and the engines hummed loudly. "You have me in a_ tractor beam!?_" She looked around and could see the dull electric blue glow from behind her ship and she throttled down the engines. "Which one of you _boneheaded idiots_ decided to create an interstellar diplomatic incident?"

"I did." Prince Zuko had an oddly soft voice for the leader of the Fire Nation. His soothing voice came over the comm channel like a combination of a pissed off Dick Van Dyke and teenage nerd. "I lost may patience with you and Ambassador Delenn generously lent me the _Ocheti_."

"I've never been on board one of_ these _massive things." Azula muttered as she cocked the pistol. Somehow she knew shooting her way out of things wouldm't work but she liked the comfort of a gun. She understood the National Rifle Association. She ducked down as the lid of the heavy metal topside escape hatch swung open on its hydraulics. Azula always kept a clip for her gun next to the cans of meatballs. "Okay...I'm in the shuttle bay of a Minbarri destroyer and I have a gun made by Humans."

"Okay Princess Azula, you can come out!" Fire Lord Zuko said with the tone of someone who had lost much of his patience. "We have you surrounded."

"We have you surrounded?" Azula laughed. "How did you become leader of the Fire Nation with those verbal skills? One of the reasons I don't want to come out and am holding a _slug thrower_ is that you have me surrounded by members of the Minbarri Warrior caste. _Why not_ let me go because of this impasse."

She felt a jolt as something yanked yer from the ship and tossed the gun across the shuttle bay. She saw a flash of black cloth and then the face of a serious looking Minbarri who now had lifted her as she kicked uselessly in the air.

"This is a revolting development." Azula hissed. "What_ did I_ ever do to you? Ow! That doesn't bend that way on my people!"

"Why are all the races bigger than us!?"

"I needed to assert my authority and prove my resolve to you. You never listen so I had to make myself quite clear." Zuko paced the deck in his full Fire Nation regalia. "You have no common sense and should know the average Human can snap you in two like a twig. Mother had feared you might wind up dead on a far away planet so I came."

Zuko had seen her sister angry before but never as fully enraged as she struggled with the Minabrri soldier. "Katara left a week ago." His voice became the calm and serious voice of the brother she knew. "She has sent us two unexceptional reports and they check out – she used proper encryption and followed all proper security procedures. Yet we can't communicate with the frigate dispatched to Earth nor with her and her security detail. When our routine calls went unanswered, it concerned me deeply."

"Can I put her down?" The hulking soldier asked politely. "She keeps trying to bite my arm and has an endless supply of spit."

"Sorry...sir." Zuko answered. "Please put her down." Zuko took pity on the poor soldier. He had thick black clothes made of the best Minbarri armor fibers and Azula would break her teeth trying to bite through it. Zuko did know that made Azula no less pleasant to fight. As a young boy, Zuko had occasion to run for what he took was his life when he had pissed off Azula and she had tried to throttle him.

Azula clenched her fists. "Where's my gun?"

"Can you focus?" Zuko crossed his arms and walked up to Azula and steeled himself to receive a black eye or strong slap to his face. "I know you are angry and we have taken some liberties."

Azula ran to pick up her gun.

Zuko stood in front of Azula. "You have a Shadow cloaking system on board your ship and you are using illegal Centauri cyborg brains. This could cause you legal trouble if you visited many systems _but right now I need your help_."

Azula ran up to him and kicked him in the left knee.

"_What did you do that for!?_" Zuko grabbed his knee.

"You nearly crashed into my ship and my life flashed before my eyes." Azula countered angrily. "I had to get that out my system. Besides that, I have made a collection of the mistresses Lady Mai knows nothing about!"

"I _do not have any misteresses!_"

"She doesn't know that." Azula grinned evilly and then laughed wickedly and coughed. "She has trust issues and so a simple workable falsehood?"

"You _are evil!_"

"And now I'll begin to go into shock and start to convulse because my ribcage has collapsed and hasn't worked its way back into place." Azula dropped to the ground coughing up blood.

* * *

Azula woke up in the medical bay of the ship inside a medical scanner.

"You punctured a lung, young Azula." Delenn spoke sweetly. "I'll get your brother. He has been waiting outside of medical bay for you to recover."

"How long was I out?"

"Two hours. Luckily the injury was not severe." Delenn bowed and left Azula alone for a moment.

Zuko walked in shortly after Delenn left and the clear door had slid shut.

"I have a plan but I need you to be_ 'less' _yourself for it to work." Zuko sat on a shiny metal chair. "We need to find Katara on Earth and we need to co-operate."

"I – cough – well I must have a piece of bone still wedged in my lung." Azula lay back on the hospital bed.

"Katara comes from a prestigious family and they would not take well to having her fall into Human hands." Zuko explained. "Her father Hakoda owns the shipyards that made much of the ship you see around us. Don't forget our house rules the Fire Nation by their vote and if something awful happened to Katara, such a powerful man could see fit to punish me and don't forget my fall would be your fall as well."

Azula pondered this carefully. The position of Fire Lord was hereditary but the idea of impeaching one wasn't at _all out_ of the question. The process of impeaching the Fire Lord would require a long process of staging a scandal, debating constitutional technicalities and taking a vote. Azula knew all of this and that assassination didn't have the same way of pleasing the populous and left many unanswered questions and conspiracy theories in its wake. Humiliation worked far better to rid the nobility of someone who had displeased them.

"And what about the Humans?" Azula thought of Psycorps and thought they at least deserved punishment. "Would this trigger another War?"

"War is not our way." Zuko reminded Azula. "No profit lies in a War between two worlds so far apart. We may have the technological lead on the Humans but they're more numerous. You shouldn't forget the tale of the sky bison and the ants. The sky bison may crush thousands and kill millions but the ants will eventually overwhelm him and eat him to the bone." He put his hands on his legs with a slap to drive out the cold. "We could protest, we could institute sanctions and we have powerful allies in the Minbarri but we're still alone."

"This room is freezing." Azula complained as her mind focused on her physical rather than emotional discomfort. She knew Minbarri preferred room temperature to hover around 16 degrees Centigrade. Humans liked it at around 20 degrees but both races had much less carbon dioxide in their atmosphere and the Kaitenni kept their quarters at about 5 degrees higher and also kept the humidity high. Without the insulating carbon dioxide, Azula's teeth began chattering even under the bed covers.

Zuko rubbed his hands together as he also felt the cold. "I don't approve of what you did but I have always thought of you as an uncaring, amoral sociopath."

"How nice...abuse." Azula knew Zuko enjoyed pressing her buttons but she felt too cold and tired.

* * *

"I know you tried to do the right thing. I have always admired your keen instincts and logical mind but we have to be careful and I couldn't have you roaring down on Earth with your guns and blasters blazing." Zuko knew the Minbarri engineers had begun a careful inspection of her ship – somethin Azula would take as an insult and invasion of her privacy. He had convinced Delenn and her people to 'overlook' the more illegal modifications but Delenn insisted they have a close look at the cloak system. Delenn wished to know if Azula's ship had an ancient antique found on some weary and deserted world or if the Shadows had begun to once again infiltrate the Galaxy.

"She runs her ship 'hot'." The senior Minbarri engineer told Delenn and Zuko with a stern face which showed disapproval. He looked old by Minbarri standards, but tall, healthy, fit and had a fine featured face and stood obediently in front of Delenn with his hands clasped obediently behind his back. Delenn had selected him as he knew the Kaitenni designs inside and out.

"I see." Delenn nodded. She knew _'running hot' _meant running the fusion engines by tweaking them so they achieved higher temperatures. During the _Earth Minbarri War_, Humans tried to 'run hot' by upping the power of the laser ignition systems and magnetic fields constraining the plasma. It worked and they gained up to a twenty percent improvement along with a huge drop in reliability. Kaitenni engines used fission to induce fusion in a chamber where artificial gravity compressed the fuel. Azula had an aftermarket kit and other pieces that allowed her ship to run hot without engine failure but the engineer didn't approve. The _Ocheti _had caught up to her in hyperspace because of a combination of a very skilled sensor crew, a Minbarri cloaking system and the lack of Azula's experience in combat. Had she had a chance to flee; even their best fighter pilots would have a hard time trying to run her down.

"She kept the ship in impeccable shape." The engineer referred to the clean and unscratched paint which remained a light blue white with red markings and showed only a few signs of pitting from the harsh environment of space. "I flew one of those ships as a young pilot ferrying military officers and so like me, its getting near retirement age."

Delenn chuckled softly.

One engineer held out an insulated static probe grounded to the destroyer's hull by a long, thick wire. Cloaks worked by blocking a much electromagnetic radiation from leaving the ship and by confounding sensors with a vastly powerful beam of white noise on a broad band. Azula had two huge heat sink like devices one either side of the top aft portion of her ship which generated the field and the size of the fins told the engineers the system put out a huge amount of power and it took time to dissipate such power. This made them treat the ship with the utmost respect.

Delenn wondered for a brief moment if the_ little princesses_ mind was opaque to telepaths because of biology or that her reasoning followed such Byzantine pathways all they got was white noise.

"Thank you for your work." Delenn bowed and turned to the other engineers. The grounding rod made a bright flash and a loud snap as she tried to speak. "Remember this ship belongs to a diplomat and we can't tamper with it in any way. Treat it with all due respect."

The man holding the grounding rod stepped back as another flash and loud snap announced itself.

The whole shuttle bay reeked with ozone.

"I do want as much detail as you can gather about the cloaking system. I place utmost importance on knowing if its Shadow technology and how old it might be." Delenn explained patiently to the senior engineer.

"The cloaking system used parts that resemble Shadow technology." The senior engineer stood before Delenn as she stared up at the holographic display of hyperspace on the ship's battle deck. He bowed as was the custom then he resumed his report.

"A Human once said_ 'history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme_'" Delenn said regretfully. "We have only a vague idea of how long the Shadows had a presence on Kaiten as the Federation didn't then extend to that world. We fought the War but liberated that world only after the appearance of Valen and we made contact with the people only _after _the end of the War." Schematics of _The Wasp Queen_ appeared on the screen. "We found them in a desperate state – poverty and disease rampant and petty wars raged over the planet. They became a part of the Federation and than a nation unto themselves. We never had a merchant caste and have come to think of the Kaitenni as filling that role."

The schematic of the cloaking system appeared in perfect detail.

"They are not us." The engineer said tersely.

"They are not of the Shadows either." Delenn spoke out of deference to a millennium of good and useful relations with the odd race of people on their border. "Tell me about this cloaking system in more detail."

"The cloak confused our sensors by swamping them with noise that seemed to come from all directions at all bands" The engineer began to explain. "It blocked the noise and heat of the ship by using a powerful field of energy. We have had similar technology for a long time but have always considered it _'dishonorable to run' _cloaked in space and as we found out when Sheridan attacked the _Black Star_ with nuclear weapons; a cloak by no means prevented visual identification." He sent a small hand gesture to the computer and the holographic display zoomed in on a component. "The power source uses a thermocouple in the coolant loop for the engines – a very typical Kaitenni feature. It uses Fire Nation components in other places including the field generators." The diagram zoomed in on the field generators. "I have a suspicion the Shadows designed some of it but they didn't build it. I think they may have come across a piece of Shadow technology for the past and reverse engineered this cloak. The Kaitenni never pass up an opportunity to make things for profit and they have become quiet skilled."

"I have often found this part of their character irritating." Delenn admitted. "We came to rely on them to build much of our civilian fleet. The Warrior caste used our Worker caste to built their war machines and the Kaitenni gladly took our money and sold us their best ships. We must not forget the Kaitenni appear crude and uncultured to us but they are by no means stupid."

The Warrior caste engineer nodded. The Warrior caste had the Worker caste built their ships but countless tablet computers, appliances and other components had come from the Kaitenni. The Fire Nation had a knack for making consumer goods and the Minbarri ships had been only half as comfortable before the Kaitenni eagerly offered to sell them things.

* * *

The next day, Azula was scheduled to depart and Zuko walked into the shuttle bay with a red haired young man with green eyes, a thin build and the red uniform of an academic or teacher.

"Before you depart to Earth, I brought along an anthropologist." Zuko mentioned by way of an introduction. "Karo Zhao has studied the humans extensively." Zuko motioned to a young and short man. "I introduce Doctor Karo Zhao of the Royal Fire Nation University."

"I look forward to going with you on your visit to Earth." Karo bowed politely.

Azula looked at Karo. "An anthropologist? You have the ear of the Minbarri ambassador to Babylon Five; truck seventy five light years on a Minbarri ship to grant to me the services of an anthropologist? How does this help?"

"I have full knowledge of Human culture." Karo added enthusiastically. "I can advise you on many things."

"Human culture is an oxymoron." Azula replied. "I didn't come to study human culture as much as to find out what happened to my aide. In a pitched battle between us and a hoard of humans angry that we ate a child; how will you help? Chuck a camera at them?"

"Yes I _do_ know they don't approve of cannibalism!" Azula cut off Karo.

Azula had clearance from Delenn to leave provided that Karo not be ejected into space and be also be allowed to join her on the mission to Earth. Azula had a pain in the chest from her collapsed ribs and punctured lung and figured having a pain in the ass come with her balanced the Universe. This led to a long and furious argument between Azula, Zuko and Delenn. The three of them stood outside of the static field of _The Wasp Queen_ and rgued in the shuttle bay. The crew normally working in the large hangar like enclosure had left to allow the three of them time to sort matters out.

"I told you yesterday, we needed to co-operate!" Zuko pleaded with his sister. "Karo comes highly recommended."

Azula looked up at her ship. "I was hoping that meant you'd co-operate _by giving me weapons. _In any dangerous situation, a gun will prove more useful than an anthropologist. I bet you have a herd of Jehovah Witnesses – no wait they don't exist_ any more_. Something about one hundred and forty four thousand of them vanishing in Vorlon space."

"Karo has the tact and knowledge to deal with the humans and that can help you find Katara." Delenn tried to reason with the princess but chose not to complete the thought with the words: 'and you have no tact and a venomous temper.'

Azula remained silent and walked beneath her ship and ran her fingers over the bottom of the ship as she shone a bright flashlight up at its undersides. This made Delenn cringe as she had seen her own engineers struggle the previous day with the static fields it generated. Azula pressed her hand into a small handhold and a small door about a meter long and as wide as a hand slowly popped open.

"Things happened so quickly, I had no time to explain this," Azula pushed on a metal orange bar and it clicked loudly making a sharp echo through the shuttle bay. "My hair is standing on end – this breaker grounds out the cloaking system. If you don't pull it, the ship will take days to dissipate the static field."

"I want you to keep out of trouble." Zuko added somewhat defiantly. "You have no combat training. I trained with the Minbarri as a fighter pilot and you didn't. You had Kaitenni civilian flight training – and I know you did exceptionally well." Zuko mentioned this to address the issue of her sister's pride by recognizing her skills. "Nothing could make up for serious training with the best combat pilots. Unlike you, they have a philosophy."

Azula closed the compartment and walked around her ship. "Iroh sent you to train with the Minbarri because you were twelve years older. You decided I didn't merit such training and as you had ascended to the throne of the Fire Lord – your word was final." Azula inspected the ship in a ritual that had not changed since the first aircraft. "Karo will sit, _be quiet and_ sit in the jump chair and I'll give him the satellite radio control."

"You lack discipline or control over your emotions." Zuko delivered his verdict calmly. "All the worst emotions rule your soul."

Azula examined the landing strut on her ship, checked the hydraulic lines and assured herself it was in working order.

"Did I ever tell you – Delenn about when my brother had head lice?" Azula stood and waited for an access hatch to lower. "I can't play that game because he saw me in diapers – never mind." Azula peered inside. "I fly my ship _because_ I know how to handle it. You may have the skills to fly with the Minbarri pilots and shoot at Humans and the Humans would find that interesting...but you don't fly _The Wasp Queen_."

"I never had a combat role." Zuko clarified.

"Indeed." Azula reached into the compartment, stretching up as she did so. She felt along wires and looked for fraying or any irregularities in electrical or optical cables. "I will not tell them _that_ until they get to 'aim' when you're standing in front of the firing squad." She stood back and the panel closed. "Some Humans hold a grudge for a long time. Even I get accused of being a Minbarri sypathizer by the less tolerant of the lot." Azula waited a moment. "I want my gun back."

* * *

The Minbarri destroyer had done Azula the kind favor of delivering her and her anthropologist to the proper jump point so Azula and Karo could enter the solar system. Zuko buckled in as Azula prepared the ship to depart the Minbarri ship.

Delenn watched the departure from the window of the shuttle bay control room. A fine blue mist erupted from the bottom of Azula's ship. _'An odd design' _she thought. The destroyer's traffic control officer struggled with the tractor beam as he tried to lift Azula's ship off the ground. Minbarri ships had repulsor fields but Azula needed to have help leaving the shuttle bay.

Fire Nation ships 'dropped' their ships out of the shuttle bays directly letting them float into space. Azula had to rely on a Minbarri operator to lift her ship off the shuttle bay deck and gently push it into space. Azula pulled the lever that raised the landing gear as the shuttle bay doors opened and she felt the push forward.

Karo sulked in the jump seat off to her left side and behind her.

The dull glow of hyperspace surrounded Azula as she felt the gravity decay. She set the artificial gravity and began to throttle up her own engines.

"All the best luck," Delenn chirped over the comm link.

"If you hear a loud scream over this channel, _we failed" _Azula set the jump engines and plugged in the proper co-ordinates for a jump gate located outside of the planet Neptune. "Good bye."

"Why are you using a jump gate so far out?" Karo asked as he watched the instruments glowing in the dimly lit cockpit. "We can jump in close to Earth and save time."

"I filed a flight plan and specified this gate, the less the Humans know of our capabilities, the better. We're a civilian ship with two _Fire Nation nobles_." Azula hoped Ivanova had enough pull to convince _Antarctic Control_ of the benign nature of their mission. She pushed the throttles to mid position and signaled the jump gate to open.

"What about _The Aoba?_" Karo asked quietly. "Have they hailed us?"

Azula felt the warm glow of the golden light as the jump gate opened and the sinking feeling as the ship crossed the boundary into Relativistic Space and had her eyes on the controls.

Karo felt a sinking sensation and then the stars reappeared in the front windows.

"_The Aoba_ is part of our problem." Azula answered as she attended to the readouts of her instruments. "Hyperspace communications are always fragile and perhaps the Aoba has had trouble with establishing a communication link with Homeworld. The Earth lies at the fringe of our space." Azula pressed a touch screen and Karo watched the airplane style throttle move. "It can happen. I find it unlikely because we have purchased bandwidth on Centauri and Drazi channels so their network should have picked up our communications and relayed them to us. We _pay_ them to use their bandwidth after all."

"Antarctic Control...this is _The Wasp Queen_." Azula spoke into the comm link. "We have a specialist for the Lancer Frigate Aoba."

"Roger." A pause followed after the female voice spoke. "please follow your designated flight path to the Aoba in orbit around Io." Another pause followed. "Welcome to Earth."

Ivanova had been good to her word. Azula knew the flight plan, kept to it and expected the next six hours to pass slowly. Azula heard nothing and saw the course to _The Aoba_ light up on her holographic display. She decided to stick to regulations and not rush her ship.

"Conway Twitty?" Azula huffed in indignation. "The Humans have a thousand or more music channels in their space and all you can find is a dead - thank God for that small mercy - _Country and Western singer from their twentieth century?_"

"This music speaks to me." Karo defended his musical taste.

Azula reached down. "My hand is poised to eject you into space – find something else!"

Azula had regained control of the satellite radio which meant the cockpit and the whole ship resonated to various Rolling Stones songs.

"Notice how we've not received a single message from _The Aoba,_" Karo pointed out, "I expected a greeting or hail."

"I looked up Mark Hammil on Wikipedia." Azula answered back. "He died in the studio doing the voice over for a children's cartoon. The good folks at the Antarctic Control Center have spent a good deal of time chatting me up. They tell me communications are spotty."

"Look it up on the Wikipedia?" Karo said with frustration.

"The repository of all information...a black ship has pulled along side." Azula spoke as casually as a mortician selling a casket. "It looks to menace us." The black ship had no markings save for gold a gold symbol and some markings on its wings. She estimated it to be about the size of an Earth battleship and knew it could fry her to atoms. "My sensors didn't make a blip or ping until just now so be afraid – very afraid."

Sympathy for the Devil stopped abruptly and the proximity alarm went off like a sleeping watchman suddenly hearing glass break. Azula knew the ship had a very good cloak.

"Not Stones fans?" Azula spoke over the comm channel.

Karo hoped for Azula to practice diplomacy and remain calm and negotiate her way out of the current situation.

The black ship shot across her bow with ion cannon as a warning to stand down and prepare to be boarded. Azula took the ion cannon shots as a personal insult. Azula felt the heat of the energy carried by the greenish white bolt of energy.

"Who the hell was that!?" Karo cried out.

Azula throttled up and made a hard, vomit inducing turn. The black ship fired on her and either because of inept gun crews or her maneuvers; they missed wildly. Karo yelped as his ribcage collapsed. He could see Triton, the largest moon of Neptune grow huge in the front cockpit window.

"Damned if I know!" Azula didn't recognize the strange winged ship as any design she knew. The humans used rotating sections on a ship of that size and this sleek design looked far beyond their technology.

"The Humans call this a_ 'game of chicken' _and the main rule is not to crash into the icy moon of the big blue planet." Azula cried out.

Karo watched as geysers of white ice erupted from the surface of the moon as the bolts of the energy cannon from the black ship struck the surface. Azula could out fly the huge black ship but the ship could out power any weapons she had at her disposal.

At least Karo thought as much. Azula pressed a button and a black round object fell out of the ship and made a graceful arc through the cold vacuum of space and made a white cloud as it struck the surface of Triton.

"You wouldn't..."

A white flash erupted from the surface of the moon as Azula sped away from the moon and a powerful blue plasma arc moved across the surface of the moon into space. "Wouldn't what?"

The black ship hung in the air as every single alarm on board Azula's ship went off in a choir of malfunctions. The lights flickered and the display of the satellite radio went out. Azula shut off the loud alarms which didn't tell yer anything she didn't already know.

"I hope our computers will recover from the electromagnetic pulse shell before theirs do. I must thank the Minbarri for that clever device. With any luck, they were closer to the pulse than us!" Azula yanked on the controls and nothing happened except that the ship began to fall into the path of Neptune. The computers had not yet settled down as Azula pushed the ship into high speed and roared out of the orbital plane of Neptune.

The black ship in orbit around Triton and appeared to have suffered a power loss. It didn't attempt to pursue and Azula's instruments could pick up no energy signature from it.

"Can a quick look on Wikipedia identify our escort – I can't!" Azula shouted as Karo looked on helplessly. "Someone came to greet us."

"You took a gamble didn't you?" Karo replied loudly. "You could have fried every system on this ship! _I didn't sign up for this!_"

"We come in peace but shoot to kill." Azula climbed out of the pilot seat. "Yes I did. That was an EMP device which can't be traced to us and it shorts out the old style semiconductor electronics. Most of this ship works on holographic and optical principles but we have work to do." Azula pulled open the panels under the galley. "Harmless unless you rely on semiconductors – harmful if you do. Most of my ship relies on holographic – er and biocomputers. I would say we have won this one but our ship uses electronics for control."

Karo could see Neptune growing visibly larger. The lights came back on one by one as the flight systems came on. The satellite radio had fallen victim to the surge and the radio display had visible burn marks on its screen.

Azula had the comm system set to monitor human channels. Much of the chatter didn't amount to more than the typical banter but the comm link locked into a message from the mysterious black ship but Azula and her comm system could make nothing of it.

"We should get out of here." Azula stood in the actual bowels of the ship and scratched her head with one hand and shone a heavy black metal flashlight. "That could have gone better."

Karo spoke in a panicked voice. "That cold, gas giant planet has begun to get awfully big."

Azula unplugged a thick red plastic coated cable that looked quite capable of hosting a deadly charge. She pulled on it and a meter long metal connector slid out and crackled. The cockpit lights and screens flickered out and Karo heard things that normally hummed grow silent. "The cyborg brains have decided to have a fit."

Azula had to grab the sides of the access hatch in the floor as the gravity field died out. Karo decided to remain in his chair but the roll of the ship became much more noticeable without gravity to keep his sense of 'up' working.

"What are you trying to do?" Karo sounded more panicked.

"Trying to avoid hitting the planet." Azula pulled herself down into the cavern under the galley. "The Laws of Motion are driving the bus." She resumed her work on the ship with a mixture of curse words and a solid pounding with her flashlight. "You wouldn't happen to have a hammer? You can fix anything with a hammer."

Azula pushed the red cable back in and then fell into the access hatch as the gravity came on. "Ow – son of a bitch!"

She crawled out of the hatch, rubbed her head and adjusted her gold hair decoration and jumped into the cockpit. "Crap!...another black ship." Azula glared at Karo. "You _didn't_ notice this?" The second black ship closed in on the first and ignored Azula.

"I am a diplomatic envoy of the Kaitenni – the Fire Nation!" Azula called out frantically as she maneuvered her ship. "I mean no harm!"

This statement made no sense to Karo since she had deployed an EMP bomb against the first ship and in his mind this meant she did intend harm.

A moment passed with no reply. Not even a crackle came over the comm system.

The second black ship looked identical to the first and Azula could see from her instruments that it had energized its main guns. A green beam stabbed across the darkness of the Outer Solar System and struck the first ship. The first ship flew apart in a flash of brilliant white light and then dissolved into nothing.

"Getting the hell out of here!" Azula punched the throttles and felt her seat press into the small of her back. She straightened out the ship. "If you need to spew, don't!"

Karo felt a jolt from outside the ship. Azula thanked her lucky stars that the aim of these ships had proven wildly inaccurate so far but she decided to use the ring arcs of Neptune – billions of chunks of ice – to provide cover.

"We're crossing the ring plane of the planet." Azula explained casually. "We're small and should evade most of the ice particles but the black ship has to go around them."

A loud bang reverberated through the ship. "I said _most _of the ice particles."

"I left my lemur with my neighbor." Karo grabbed his seat. "I used to be one of Zuko's best friends. I may have a change of heart on that issue." He saw the swirling winds of Neptune and could see a hurricane the size of a large Earth like world. "Will I see my lemur again?"

"_Aoba!?_" Azula called out. "I'm under attack. Come in!"

Silence followed.

The black ship grew smaller as _The Wasp Queen_ began to pull away. The second black ship engaged its jump engines and vanished in a gold and white glow. Azula sped up to a significant fraction of the speed of light in case a third ship waited. Azula sighed. _'Who owned that ship and why did it attack her?'_ The Earthforces didn't have any orders to attack her as they were ruled by a constitution that prevented them from attacking anyone unless war was declared.

_The Aoba_ hung in space orbiting over Io exactly where it should be – at the same position as the _Monolith_ in _2001 a Space Odyssey_ – _The La Grange point_. Azula could see the pinpoints of light from the mining colonies on the night side of the yellow and harsh surface of the moon Io. The Aoba looked deserted and ignored her countless hails.

She switched channels.

* * *

"Io Traffic Control?" Azula called out over the comm.

"This is Io traffic control." A dull male voice crackled over the comm link. "Ship #267? Can you identify yourself?" The controller sounded tired and bored.

"I am Kaitenni diplomatic vessel – _The Wasp Queen_."

"I expected as much." The controller commented. "_The Aoba_ jumped into Earth space through the jump gate near Jupiter. Something went wrong with the jump gate and this damaged their jump engines and caused a reactor coolant leak on board."

"Any casualties?" Azula asked urgently.

"No fatalities but some injuries. I don't have the details." The comm crackled. "Ganymede Earthforce Base mounted a rescue of your people. The jump gate accident has made communications spotty at best. I can forward you to Ganymede but I can't guarantee you can make contact."

A few seconds later, a rousing crescendo of static filled the cockpit. "Frssh – _Wasp Queen?_ This is _Earthforce Command Ganymede_." Azula heard a loud series of pops. "Please follow this course to the base. We have your people."

A vast complex of gray almost buildings formed a delicate arc on the dirty ice of Ganymede. On the horizon of the icy moon, Azula could see large solar arrays and the dim Sun glinted off them. The Humans had built the complex in a circle that had a radius of five kilometers or more. It looked like a combination of an off world physics facility, linear accelerator and military base.

Communications improved as_ The Wasp Queen _approached Ganymede; Azula found out the jump accident had fried Earhforce communications through the entire Jovian system and outages continued. _The Aoba_ had become a pile of radioactive trash and so the Humans planned to drop it into the atmosphere of Jupiter once the accident had been investigated. No one on Io or Ganymede could identify the black ships. Azula had many questions and no answers.

"Earthforce has no problem allowing me onto a military installation." Azula began the landing cycle as she watched her instruments during the descent. She didn't trust them and she relied on the Ganymede Base controllers calling out instructions. She felt a bump, then a click and the landing gear indicators flashed red to show she had landed.

Karo felt his stomach rise as Azula cut off the artificial gravity and the moon's natural gravity took hold.

"What happened to the drop ships_ The Aoba_ had on board?" Azula had many questions but a few almost subconscious hunches as her mind began to work on the mystery. "The Aoba would have two to shuttle people back and forth. I bet we can't account for them."

The landing pad began to descend. Most of the base lay below the planet – a precaution taken to harden the base against all but the most ardent attack. A bright orange light filled the cockpit as sodium lamps cast their evil glow. The pad stopped gently after a few moments. Both Karo and Zula felt a shudder and a growing hiss as air filled the square cavern.

"Welcome to _Ganymede Base_." A familiar voice spoke.

Karo and Azula undid their seat belts and Azula pressed the cockpit button that engaged the lower entry ramp. She did not feel at all comfortable.

Karo went to the drawer and picked up his tablet computer. "Do you think we're safe?"

Azula kept walking down the ramp. "Not at all. Speak softly and have good life insurance."

Azula touched the bottom of her ship. "Bestor!"

"Welcome to _Ganymede Base,_" Bestor smiled charmingly as he stood with two husky soldiers beside the airlock that led to the rest of the base. "Your _Admiral Zhao_ would have been here to greet you, but he is recovering from radiation injuries sustained in the accident."

"I could think of something to say," Azula said petulantly, "but all that comes to mind are the words your people use for your genitals in porn."

* * *

"Zuko didn't tell you my father was an Admiral did he?" Karo added as he looked to Azula. "Makes you look at me in a whole new way."

"Let me get this straight!" Azula sat next to Katara and Bestor sat across a large table made of granite. Bestor calmly netted his gloved hands. The Ganymede authorities had compiled a detailed report Azula had read from beginning to end. She had met with all of her people who were staying in a hotel for the family of military personnel and were all in fine shape. "You aren't at the root of all evil? You didn't sabotage our ship and Chief Bei Fong vanished into Human space shortly after that accident with a jump gate?" Azula had to accept that whoever lay behind the acts of subterfuge; it seemed increasingly unlikely the official branches of the Psycorps or Earthdome had any knowledge of it.

"This base happens to be where we train the _Omega Squadron:_ our elite telepaths." Bestor spoke sweetly. "I knew your people best and so it was decided to have me head the investigation along with your captain and a team of your engineering staff. Quite frankly I have no idea what happened."

Azula had Katara sitting next to her and had many questions. "Why didn't you notify Homeworld?"

Bester put his gloved hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. "We _have tried_. The jump gate damaged by the accident has disrupted communications throughout the system. We have two jump gates to service Earth and Mars but only the Jovian jump gate has a communications relay. The one in the outer solar system has no relay because it lies too far out and so would create too much of a delay."

"What about the fake reports?" Azula tapped the table. "Our people received two reports from Katara."

"The only way to communicate from Earth in a timely manner without a gate is through a ship that can open a jump point and to beam the message directly through hyperspace." Bestor explained but knew Azula also understood this. "We have used our own jump engine equipped vessels to relay communications but we don't know your encryption codes or communication protocols."

Katara looked at Azula. "I had no time to send any reports."

"Without the Jovian jump gate communication relay, no one can send a message without a ship that can open its own jump gate." Azula felt the tinge of frustration at finding out Bestor didn't lie at the heart of a conspiracy. She believed his report: it stated the events clearly and accurately. "That means our fake reports came from a ship with a jump drive. Aside from Human military ships and large civilian space liners; I have no idea where they came from."

"Have you even considered the real reason we're here on Ganymede? We rescued your people from a massive accident." Bestor spoke with infinite calm. "A Fire Nation ship had a massive reactor failure among the six fission reactors used to provide the energy to sustain fusion. A large Fire Nation ship lies in orbit around Jupiter and poses a major risk to shipping – our people will want answers. Earthdome will also want the mess cleared up and will need assurance your designs are safe."

"A massive reactor failure among all six fission reactor cooling systems: an accident never before seen in any of our ship designs?" Azula said defiantly and slid a data crystal over the table to Bestor. "We have a perfect operational record. You can check that out for yourself."

"A power surge so huge, it takes out the jump engines, the gate and nearly destroyed a Lancer class frigate?" Azula tapped the desk with her finger. "A ship which had the most modern flight safety features: a flight system in use by a dozen races?"

Katara sat next to Azula and faced her. "We jumped into normal space and according to the engineer, we had a massive secondary reactor failure on board. We had to evacuate everyone to the habitation areas of the ship because the liquid metal coolant had caused a massive fire and explosion. We had no power except for battery power and radiation levels in the engineering section prevented us from doing anything to contain the situation. We managed to vent the atmosphere in that section into space and put out the fire but we couldn't do anything but call out for help."

"The fission reactors would have melted down within seconds." Azula had to wrap her mind around the fact a one in a trillion chance accident had taken place. "We had a disaster and we can't go back and investigate it because levels in the engineering sections would prove lethal within thirty seconds. I find that a very clever way of hiding the evidence."

"What are you saying; young Azula?" Bestor eyed Azula. She appeared to him as a blank, as if she were dead but he had learned to dislike but respect her.

Azula leaned over the table. "I sense sabotage in this. We can make our systems idiot proof, tamper proof and as safe as possible but we can't protect them against someone with knowledge of them and the intent to cause destruction."

"Are you implicating us?" Bestor sounded offended and incredulous.

"You have little knowledge of our power systems and had no access to them. For what it's worth, I don't." Azula countered. "You may want to study our species for your own ends but Psycorp deploys subtler means – most of the time." Azula looked to Katara. "I want to return to_ The Aoba _and take a closer look."

"Our rescuers did search the habitat sections as best they could but they had limited time. They found nothing there." Bestor reminded Azula. "Only the front sections have any life support and after days in the cold of space, you'd have to wear space suits just to survive the cold. Those suits wouldn't keep you alive in the radiation levels in the engineering section."

"The frigate has two drop ships which are small eight person craft. It has six airlocks and so other ships can pull alongside and dock; but only the vessels from here did so." Azula countered as she scratched her nose. "We're missing one person from the Aoba. Where did Chief Bei Fong go? The rescuers didn't find her. She could be dead in the engineering section but that seems unlikely given that all our other engineers escaped. She could have remained behind in the habitat sections and remained undiscovered but she'd still die. The radiation wouldn't kill her but without a space suit the cold would. Even with a suit, she'd have no power and so no water or food. If she took a drop ship, she could leave in the confusion during the unfolding disaster. If one ship has gone missing or she's dead or dying on board; at least we'll have an answer."


End file.
